Hello UKBride! I can imagine this question has been asked before, but I’m hoping your lovely followers would be able to answer a few questions. My husband to be and I recently got engaged, although in no hurry to get married, as we got engaged pretty quickly. We are looking at our options of how / where we want to get married. The problem is, I have a very large family, and his is very very(!!) small, so I feel it’s unfair to have all my family when he hasn’t got many at all. Which made us think that maybe going abroad is the best bet so then we can just take those closest to us. I think we’ll be thinking of 9 people (including my husband to be and myself) possibly 11 - Depending on budget of course! We’re not entirely sure where abroad, we haven’t really got that far! Although a definite no long haul (Unless a super bargain is to be had!). I was wondering if anyone had similar thought process and how the budget weighed up? As in is it actually cheaper to get married abroad than it is in the UK? We love the idea of abroad and would love the opportunity to become husband and wife somewhere different. Thank you!
Gretna green is lovely for smaller weddings , we got married in November at Anvil Hall with the reception at Greens Hotel, amazing weekend x
I dont think it is particularly unfair to have a wedding with all of ur family and his small family, as a wedding is about joining families together. Your big family will also become his family :-) i have a lot of family members coming to my wedding and my partner only has his auntie and uncle due to very bad relationships with his mum and brother and he doesnt feel that i unfair, he loves my family and already sees them as his family too!
My partner has more family than me, I have no grandparents left, he has both sets still, he has more siblings, nieces, nephews etc to invite. Doesn't bother me, as long as family is there that we want to be there, that's all that matters
My family is bigger then my partners doesn't bother us at all his got more friends so that balances it out a bit, you can't help how big or small each family is, maybe just do a sign to say to guests sit wherever for the ceremony?
We are getting married in Zante. There is 27 of us all together and is costing about £5,000 for the wedding (not including the holiday ) you can have a very cheap wedding abroad but also a very expensive one it just depends what you are wanting really. If you do like the idea of zante have a look at www.zanteweddings.com they are amazing I would definitely recommend them and to stear clear of the big travel agents xxx
My husbands family was smaller than my side yet we still had a UK church wedding with the reception. It just gave us the opportunity to invite some more of our very close friends of both of ours that we consider family. Having said that, it is your day and if you both like the sound of keeping it small and getting married abroad then I would go for it! You said it yourself, you love the idea of aboard and becoming husband and wife somewhere different. There are so many beautiful places you could go so enjoy taking some time to browse the Internet, browse catalogues from travel agents to look for your perfect country and venue. It might cost the same as a wedding over here but at the end of the day, you are the ones that will look back on the day in the future and say "our wedding was perfect"
I would never get married without all my family so going a road was not an option for me. My nephew did this and didnt even take his mum everyone was deeply hurt. However i understand the unbalanced numbers, my family is large and my h2b has no e not even a parent so we are having a church do but no side puckung just filling up from the front!! My budget is around£12,000.
I saw a thing the other day that said you can get married in the grand canyon for 4k. I would expect it to cost more for the actual wedding abroad as unless you want to do loads of research its advisable to get a planner specialising in destination weddings to help plus it would be good to go over there and check out your venue in person at least once and its harder to plan things like cakes and food unless you arent fussed about sampling..plus extra baggage fees for your dress etc. However might balance out by having fewer guests and having it somewhere like spain where flights and alcohol are cheap. So would likely be similar pricing to in the uk. However if you do decide on a home wedding we had the same situation and i just invited more friends and plus ones for my side to balance out. Plus we had inevitable now shows and people leaving early due to children meaning by the evening we had a similar number of guests each. And remember, a wedding is also about a joining of familied so sides dont matter as at the end you are all family.
My sister I think spent roughly the same amount of money getting married in santorini, as I am spending getting married in England... If you have the option to go abroad for it, I'd suggest doing that! X
I wish we had done that, between family dynamics and fall outs, knowing who to invite, trying not to offend anyone and where to seat them is putting me right off, I liked the idea of a Gibraltar wedding, my friend married in Cyprus, another in Rome and one in sartorini, a friends daughter is marrying in Mexico and a few I know have done it in Gretna x
Me and my HTB are wanting to get married in Mexico with immediate family. I've been looking at going with Thomson and price wise we're looking at 6000 for holiday and wedding all inclusive!! Then we're gonna have a big after party at home with all friends and family. Can't wait!
Ian getting married in Vegas, its working out just short of 10K including the 2 flights and 4* hotel for a week. We are only taking 5-7 guests so no cheaper I would say. There is a lot less stress and things to plan (especially if you get a planner like us) but it does make you sad when people can not travel or afford it
We had about 116 guests for the ceremony, and about 21 of those were my husbands family and apart from maybe 15 close friends, the rest were my family! It made absolutely no difference at all and everybody enjoyed the day. We mixed the tables up as much as we could so that everybody got to know each other a little better. We made up for it in the evening when about 150 friends joined us. Just enjoy what ever you choose to do
We are getting married in Greece this September. There are 34 of us in total. Although it is costing a lot more than we had hoped we have splashed out for a lovely private suite with a private swimming pool and are staying in a 5* hotel all inclusive for two weeks. Our guests have all paid for themselves to join us. It's costing around £10500 but £3500 of that is for our 'two week holiday/honeymoon
I have a much larger family than my fiance and we're having a wedding in the UK with family (extended as far as aunts and uncles to trim the guest list down, no cousins etc) and yeah my "side" familywise will be bigger but that's just how it is...it isn't unfair that you have a bigger family at all and if it's important to you to have them all at your wedding then I'd suggest reconsidering getting married abroad with just a few people, try not to think of it as unfair that you happen to have more family. That being said if you do really want to get married abroad then go for it :)
I looked into getting married in Spain and Greece and it was sooo much cheaper. If you have a small wedding party (around 30) then I found lots of websites that have package deals that incl Venue, flowers, hair and makeup, photographer, food, unlimited house wine and evening buffets all in for around 3/4K. The settings are absolutely beautiful as well. Also looked into renting a huge villa that all the guests can stay in and doing everything ourselves. We ended up not being able to whittle it down to a small number and we are getting married in the U.K so we can have everyone there that we want as well as evening guests :) but I would deffo say to do it abroad if you only have a small amount of guests :) in regards to you having more family, I don't think that matters at all. I have a huge family but I don't see them so I'm not inviting them! Simple ! We would rather have close friends and family we see often :) if you wanted to do an even number of guests maybe you're h2b can invite more mates? X
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